Tomek Korbak is an AI safety researcher who studies language-model alignment and the monitoring of AI agents. He has worked at OpenAI, Anthropic and the UK AI Security Institute. He earned a doctorate at the University of Sussex. He studied cognitive science, philosophy and physics at the University of Warsaw and was a visiting researcher at New York University. His doctoral research focused on reinforcement learning from human feedback.
Case
OpenAI cites information-handling violations in firing three safety researchers. Their individual accounts and joint letter dispute those reasons and warn that the dismissals could weaken outside scrutiny of AI risks.
Role at the time: Former OpenAI safety researcher, METR technical contact and letter signatory
Response to this claim
Tomek Korbak says communication with METR was his assigned job and that OpenAI provided no specific example or written explanation of the communication it cited when firing him.
“Terminations such as ours, executed and communicated so abruptly, are chilling the open culture OpenAI has prized in the past.”
The conduct under scrutiny is the dismissals and their handling. Korbak signed a letter criticizing their abrupt execution and chilling effect on safety work.
Statement dates: October 8, 2026
Statement dates: October 8, 2026
